Random bits and pieces --


I was at a farmer's market in Pennsylvania with my mom this weekend - we live not too far from the DE/PA border, and there are a lot of farms nearby - when I felt this fuzzy and cold sensation on my leg. I turned around and looked down, and saw that it was this adorable floofy black dog sniffing at and licking my leg :) Well, that did it for me - I couldn't resist obliging and had to pet the cutie. The owner was an equally adorable elderly gentleman, with a rather frail build, who was trying his hardest to rein the puppy in and kept apologizing :) (I said not to worry at all..the dog was really too cute for anyone to mind.)

Before that, while waiting for the train to get to DE from Baltimore, I ended up talking to the woman sitting next to me on the bench. When she found out that I would be taking the same train as her teenage son, who was taking the train for the first time, she promptly turned to him and said "ok honey, now you just stick close to this nice young lady here because she's going on the same train. I don't want you to go on the wrong one so just follow her." I thought it was funny and cute, because the son kind of grumbled and said "Mom, I'm going to be FINE.." etc. I don't think he wanted to seem like a baby, obvi. I guess she was in a hurry because she had to leave right afterwards, and that's why she was worried - she couldn't be with him right to the moment he got on the train.

Anyway, that made me feel kind of responsible for him, so I ended up being the one to keep an eye on him and make sure that he got on the right train (he did, it's not that hard in Baltimore Penn Station to figure out where to go), and sat in the same car for good measure. I didn't talk to him, but when I got off DE DE, he looked back for me, and we just smiled at each other. He looked grateful, and seeing anyone smile like that is always nice. I hope he got to NYC just fine.

I think I could make a business out of this, what do you think? I'll just hold a sign that says "Leave your kids and pets with me and be free of worry," haha :) (I'm just kidding, don't worry.)


Oh, yeah - I was going through my school emails last week and found one from the Insoluble Fraction, a group of three PhD students who put on the weekly Friday Happy Hours at school. This email hinted that Michael Phelps would be at the happy hour...which got me really pumped and a little skeptical, because if anybody from the Olympics would ever step foot into our school we'd sure hear about it weeks in advance, so, I emailed them asking if Mr Phelps really was supposed to make an appearance. Of course it was a joke, and fortunately for me the guys from the Fraction were very nice about it (and encouraged me to come to happy hour anyway and to meet the "two goofs serving beer and chips at the table," how funny is that?).

I couldn't make it to the Happy Hour, but because I had scheduled my Friday off, I still got to take the school bus (really, a yellow school bus) to campus to print out stuff for my online class (intro to health policy), meet up with Ashika who I hadn't seen since June for lunch and studying, and pretend to be an on-campus student before heading home to DE. Things like that make me realize that as much as I like to gripe about Baltimore sometimes, I still can't find it in my heart to leave once I step foot in school. Argh :) I guess I'll wait to see how I feel after my residency/program are completed, yeah?